LiveFreeAndComply.org

In 2009, LiveFreeAndComply.org’s 30+ published articles received 8,162 page views from 2,714 unique visitors from all over the state. Many thanks to the dozens of folks who have e-mailed in information and tips on what the town government is up to – your continued vigilance helps keep everyone informed on their actions.

Here’s to hoping that 2010 will be a year devoid of fresh content on this site – if the town boards and departments would simply leave local resident’s money and property alone, there would be nothing to write about here. Don’t hold your breath for that, though.

Cheers to the New Year!

‘Twas the night before Christmas and Santa’s a wreck…
How to live in a world that’s politically correct?
His workers no longer would answer to “Elves”,
“Vertically Challenged” they were calling themselves.

And labor conditions at the north pole
Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.
Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,
Released to the wilds by the Humane Society.
More »

Following up on: [LiveFreeAndComply.org Illegal Liberty Raffle]

Selectmen Abugelis, Farnum, and Roberts went a bit overboard with their new town raffle permit, inventing new rules and powers for themselves. From their new raffle regulations: “It is the express intent and purpose of these regulations, to strictly regulate the conduct of raffles within the Town of Tamworth, through the issuance of permits for the conduct thereof, to protect the welfare of the citizens and to prevent criminal activity“. Strictly regulate indeed – Selectman Willie Farnum stated at the most recent Selectmen’s meeting that not complying with their raffle rules would be a prosecutable criminal offense!

Initially under the auspices of merely “doing their job” and complying with a silly yet onerous state law, the Selectmen have gone above and beyond and come up with these gems in their new raffle permit, none of which are provided for in RSA 287-A:

• Local charitable organizations must have their permit submitted 30 days ahead of time. Billy’s Boy Scout Troop raising funds for that scout trip in two weeks? That’s a Willie Farnum “criminal offense” right there.
• Prizes must be listed in advance for the Selectmen as well as ticket prices, along with a sample raffle ticket attached to the application. – last minute donation of a raffle prize not pre-listed on their application? Criminal offense, apparently.
• The sponsoring organization must register with the Attorney General’s office, in complete conflict with RSA 287-A:1 II. (b). According to the new permit application: “Organization must be non-profit, a charity and registered with the Non-Profit Charitable Trust. To register, Call Attorney General’s Office, Division of Charitable Trusts at 271-3591.“
• Police review of the “suitability of the applicant for a permit”. Surely any notorious con-man defrauding people on a raffle (huge problem in Tamworth these days, you know) will make sure he has his paperwork duly filed with the town in advance. This is the problem – the only people who are going to care about filing the town’s silly paperwork are local community groups looking to not get in trouble with the bureaucrats.
• Finally, in classic Tamworth town government style, there is a blanket exemption from all of their new invented rules as well as all the existing silly state rules on raffles should the Selectmen deem it appropriate. While the Selectmen choosing not to enforce the obnoxious rules of the state or town government is a positive thing, Tamworth has a history of a lot of problems arising from having two sets of rules in town, depending on who you are and your associations with town government.

The seriousness with which the Selectmen seem to take charity raffles would be humorous, if their raffle sillyness wasn’t so indicative of how things roll with the Tamworth town government: causing problems and expense for people who have harmed no one, eyes lighting up at the thought of just a little more power, control, and paperwork, and inventing rules in conflict with common sense and state law. The Selectmen ought to leave the dozens of community groups in Tamworth alone, rather than protecting “the welfare of the citizens” with more paperwork and problems.

Amidst the Selectmen’s latest firearms foibles, one Tamworth resident shared an experience he had at the town offices in which he described the actions of Anne Abear and Cassandra Pearce – the two secretarial drones in the Selectmen’s office. Easy-going Tamworth resident Bob Abraham stated he was at the town offices, invited behind Anne and Cassandra’s wall of security glass, on personal business. Firearms being a hot topic at the Selectmen’s meeting that day, Anne Abear reportedly inquired multiple times if he was carrying a firearm – he relented that he was. Bob was reportedly asked by Anne multiple times to show his holstered firearm; he stated that he reluctantly obliged and lifted his shirt slightly. Bob stated he was then promptly asked to leave Anne’s office – he complied to the sight and sound of her door being locked and her window shades being drawn shut behind him.

On his way out, Bob stated he heard Cassandra on the phone to Police Chief Dan Poirier to report that “there are people with guns” at the town offices. Turns out there were several other peaceful and responsible folks with firearms at that evening’s Selectmen’s meeting. Local officer Penny Frechette was observed in the hall later in the evening during the firearms discussion at the Selectmen’s meeting – Chief Dan Poirier refused a public records request for the specifics of his department’s call logs and reports for that evening, stating that he “doesn’t think that’s public information”.

Anne and Cassandra may want to ask themselves why they’re so concerned that people would be so mad at their actions that they think they need to be throwing local self-defense-minded gun owners out of their offices fortified with taxpayer funded security glass.

The Planning Board is busy assembling its committee which will draft their new zoning ordinance for Tamworth. Members of the public were invited to be interviewed to be on the committee at the Planning Board’s most recent meeting. Subsequent to talking with everyone who attended, Planning Board chair Dom Bergen stated they would be convening a couple people to deliberate on who would be “open minded” enough to be on the committee. When prompted as to whether these deliberations would be public, Bergen stated “No, just a couple guys are going to meet. It’s not going to be…well, you tell me, am I making a mistake? We’re just going to meet to deliberate.” Planning Board member Tom Cleveland responded in jest to Bergen “Whatever you do is right.” Other Planning Board members have since stated that the final choices the couple Planning Board members (Tom Cleveland and Willie Farnum were selected to deliberate in private) come up with would be put before the full board for a vote.

Privately deliberating on government committee appointments flies in the face of RSA 91-A, New Hampshire’s “open government” statute. Section 91-A:2-a particularly refers to communications outside of meetings as a no-no. That said, it really doesn’t matter who ends up on the committee or how they get there: the Planning Board will generate whatever zoning ordinance they please in the end – if not fully so this round, eventually. But as long as the state government has provided for a means of more openness, it ought to be fair to ask that the Planning Board go along with making their process for increasing government control publicly available for scrutiny.

The Tamworth Selectmen voted 2-1 to get rid of their offending employee policy. Tom Abugelis stated that he supports the principle of the policy, but preferred the town not get wrapped up in legal problems sorting this issue out. Willie Farnum skewed the issue from the rights of the dozens of town employees to have the means to defend themselves whilst on town property to some odd perception that town firefighters were going to be operating in a quasi-police role on fire calls. John Roberts reversed course from his previous outlook on the issue, and stated that he “doesn’t think the Board of Selectmen are in a position to decide who does and who doesn’t carry a firearm. I don’t think we can be, and I don’t want to be.” – hat’s off to John for that.

With the stubbornness of an ornery donkey in heat, Selectman Willie Farnum let out one last political gasp after the Selectmen voted to remove the offending policy, declaring that he’d like to formally have added to the town policy that the Selectmen “respectfully request” that town employees not possess firearms at work. Update: Abugelis and Roberts steer clear of more firearms problems, turning down Farnum’s suggestion for a “respectful request” from the Selectmen at their subsequent meeting.

Selectman Tom Abugelis wrapped up the discussion: “I think this is an example of a town operating with openness and responsibility out of care and concern…I’m very proud to work with my two fellow Selectmen because of the degree of thinking and thought and care that they put into every issue. To me, it’s an example of really effective local leadership.” Christ, if this Selectboard in general, and their smarmy response to the firearms issue in particular, is a fine example of “really effective local leadership”, Tamworth is in some real trouble.

Update: The Conway Daily Sun reports on Selectmen’s latest woes resulting from their anti-gun position. The article describes Selectman John Robert’s political career unraveling with residents who support gun rights and oppose government spending, and goes on to refer to Tamworth as “a bastion of uninhibited freedoms in the increasingly regulated Live Free or Die state” (Amen!). LiveFreeAndComply.org is cited as “a self-professed pro-liberty Tamworth site”. The Carroll County Independent also published a follow-up to their previous article below, stating the Tamworth Selectmen said they really, really will stop sitting on their hands on the firearms issue.

Update 2: In a win for liberty in Tamworth, the Selectmen beat a retreat on the firearms issue and removed their policy. Pro-Gun New Hampshire’s website declares “Reason and Law Defeat Prejudice in Tamworth“, describes Selectmen as having the enthusiasm of a “9-year-old going in for a root canal” in removing their employee policy.

The Carroll County Independent today published an article covering the melee over gun rights in Tamworth at the last two Selectmen’s meetings, specifically covering the firefighter’s initial objections, the illegality of the town policy, and the gun-toting town’s folk open-carrying firearms to the last Selectmen’s meeting to show the bureaucrats “that peaceful and responsible gun owners are not a problem”.

As well, the following e-mail from Ossipee Selectman and former NH State Representative Harry Merrow is reportedly making its way around the region:

From: Harry C. Merrow [mailto:{omitted}@myfairpoint.net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 12:47 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Tamworth Guns

Take a look at the attached web site. What is happening in Tamworth goes against present state law (which I supported) and is clearly illegal. If the town reg. is enforced and/or expanded I will not be able to support or vote for John [Roberts] if he runs for a second term as a State Rep. unless he takes a clear stand against the town reg. on guns. Go to    livefreeandcomply.org

Harry

The Planning Board will be putting off their latest of several attempts at getting land use regulations put through in town till the 2011 town meeting. We encourage the Planning Board to spend many, many more years perfecting their zoning ordinance, as Tamworth’s residents will get left alone all the more if the Planning Board’s time is spent on paperwork and meetings rather than on enforcing their capricious rules.

Agriculture was the focus of the final land-use forum that the Planning Board put on, led by unofficial Tamworth land use regulation facilitator Nicole Maher-Whiteside – hereafter affectionately anointed Tamworth’s Zoning Queen. Despite a handful of comments in support of more regulation at the meeting, local hard-working farmers brought forth a theme of personal responsibility, communicating with one’s neighbors, objections to burdensome taxes, a desire for Tamworth’s agricultural landscape to be of actual working farms rather than a “museum landscape” through town government, and a recognition that the only tools that town government has with which to do anything positive are to “get out of the way” with regulations and taxes.

Of particular note, coming from three of the local farmers present:

What can we do outside of government that can facilitate that [neighborly] communication?…

You could create a whole set of regulations that tried to impose a certain kind of landscape, but it could all be fields that are mowed but aren’t worked….

I could live with seeing [agricultural land] protected [through government], but far better, far better to have people living on that land farming it….

So what do you do though then when you’ve got some nice rules in place, regulations that keep agriculture land agricultural land, but you can’t afford to be there to do an agricultural endeavor? If we were given Red Gables Farm today, we would have to move because we could never afford to live there…So how can the town encourage people with agricultural interests to come here and get a piece of something to do something with?…I think people passing through with an interest in agriculture are going to keep right on going when they look at the real estate brochure….

There are young families out there, who, if they had access to some of this land, could do a good job of making it productive. If not make their whole income from it, make a substantial portion of it. But they can’t do it without help. And I don’t look to the government to do it; frankly, that has to come from the private sector; it has to come from the good will of the people to figure out how that’s going to happen….

As Tamworth’s Zoning Queen herself put it:

What I’ve heard so far is that the big thing is to stay out of the way; to not make rules that you can’t have livestock here, you can’t have a farm here, you can’t do this, you can’t do that….

I’m really hearing pretty loud and clear, actually, that we need to be more careful about making too many rules.

After months of dressing up the Planning Board’s desire for more power and control over people’s property through their “mandate from the people” in their “master plan”, and after holding six zoning meetings that several Planning Board members lamented were sparsely attended (the nerve of people not being interested in their important work!), Planning Board member Tom Cleveland committed a political faux pas at their most recent meeting, where he proclaimed: “Who doesn’t want [a land use ordinance]?!…doesn’t want an ordinance at all? Well there’s gonna be an ordinance! Tough tooties. There is going to be an ordinance.” Other Planning Board members were quick to point out that they would only be writing the ordinance and it is 51% of the voters who will decide if the Planning Board will gain more control over 100% of the properties in Tamworth.

At one zoning get-together, two Conservation Commission members weighed in on the subject:

Bill Batchelder: “I think there’s a misconception about zoning. A lot of people seem to think that zoning tells you what to do with your land. And it doesn’t. Zoning tells you a few things that you might not be allowed to do without special permission. The idea that the town is going to tell you what to do with your land, is just totally incorrect.”

Ned Beecher: “Land use restrictions are sort of based on that principle, as I understand it: we sacrifice something as an individual for the greater good.”

Clearly the town government’s good intentions are being misconstrued: you are to sacrifice your private property rights for the collective good, but you may be allowed to seek special permission from the bureaucrats. Who wouldn’t be yearning for that peachy arrangement?

Never fear though, it shouldn’t be too onerous, as Planning Board member Nicole Maher-Whiteside stated: “We’re going to start with something small, and think that it’s not going to get bigger: you’re right, it’s logical, it gets bigger. But I think if we can start with something that’s reasonable we may be able to head in a direction that doesn’t allow it to snowball into things that a majority of people don’t want.” – this is the promise with every new endeavor at every level of government, and one would be hard pressed to find a single instance where this promise was upheld over the years.

For all the purportedly awful scenarios that have been dreamt up that more government control of private property is supposed to prevent, the biggest problem on the horizon is a bunch of control freaks on this and future Planning Boards.